Date Night, Interrupted
by Kerichi
Summary: The last time Harley Quinn saw Mr. J he was going down in flames, but she should've known date night wasn't cancelled, just interrupted.


The mission was over, but adrenaline continued to rush through Harley Quinn's veins. On the helicopter ride back to Belle Rive, she hummed _Rollercoaster of Love,_ dancing in her seat as she looked over the surviving Squad members. Killer Croc was too tactile for her. Touching him would be like trying to play Connect the Dots and read Braille at the same time. Not her kind of fun. Captain Boomerang had a few gold teeth, but he smelled and acted like a feral pig. Harley preferred classy men.

"What?" Deadshot asked when she glanced sideways and let her gaze linger. If he shaved the beard, she could appreciate tall, dark, and deadly. He was a sweetie too. _Stay evil, doll face._

She blinked when he repeated his wary question. "It's 'Say what?'" she told him, imitating the Red Hot Chili Peppers. "Ooh, ooh, ooh ooh." Harley grooved along with the beat in her head and then sang, "One, two, one, two, three, the voices say you should play with me."

He edged away from her. "Play?"

She nodded fervently. "They can't help it. Humans are wired to feel sexy after a near death experiences or rollercoaster rides." She accompanied the information with shoulder rolls in case he was a visual learner. "'Strong emotions are relabeled as sexual attraction whenever an acceptable object is present.'That's a quote from the _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_. Dutton and Aron did a study."

Croc sniggered.

Deadshot glared across the compartment. "Laugh at yourself. You're not even acceptable."

"No one is, on account of my recent bereavement," Harley said. The corners of her mouth turned down as she remembered Puddin' dressed in a tux, backlit by flames inside the crashing helicopter, and then her lips twitched upward. "Next time, though."

"It'll be brace yourself, Bridget, mate," Boomerang taunted before snorting with laughter. He opened one of the beers he'd looted from a bar while they waited for the helicopter to pick them up. "Think Katana'd like a bloke to scratch her itch after missions?"

"Ask her, bitch," Croc said. "I want to watch Katana gut you with her sword."

Boomerang scowled. "The only girls you're gonna watch are on BET." He downed his beer and crushed the can for emphasis, but Croc's eyes had glazed over at the mention of the cable channel he'd soon be watching in his cell. "Wanker," Boomerang muttered. He leered at Harley. "Good on ya, not choosin' a killer croc. They dance around to get a girl, but the main event only lasts seconds."

"The shorties on BET won't mind," Croc said.

The four of them burst into laughter. Harley kept giggling after the others stopped. She laughed until she cried, sorrow and amusement muddled together, smeared like her lipstick until one of the medics ran over and jabbed a needle into her arm.

.

Harley woke in her familiar cage-like cell, but things had changed. She slept on a cot, not the floor, and the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a shiny new espresso machine. Coffee with a punch, how she'd missed it. Ten or twenty cups and she'd feel like her old self again. She rolled off the cot and did a push up to spring to her feet and transition into a back flip. Not her best form; she'd try again after a few espressos.

Caffeine, her drug of choice, worked its magic energizing her mind and body. After a tumbling routine modified to ensure she didn't hit the electrified bars, guards politely escorted her to the showers instead of herding her out of the cell with Tasers and blasting her with water from a firefighter's hose. When she'd finished dressing, the head guard, Griggs, gave her a basket filled with styling tools and hair products. All the brands were the exact ones she preferred. Most of them could be used as weapons.

 _Break the hand mirror and use a shard to cut Grigg's throat!_

"Never know when you might have company," he said.

Harley ignored her inner voices and almost changed her mind about putting the bastard on her To Kill list for everything he'd done to her before Mr. J gave him an attitude adjustment. She bit her lip to keep from laughing and dug her fingernails into her palms to make herself stroll back to her cell when she wanted to prance, to twirl, to leap.

Griggs cleared his throat nervously as he locked the door behind her. "Is there—is there anything else I can get you, Miss Quinn?"

She tilted her head and rubbed a fingertip across the PUDDIN tattoo on her jaw. "Yeah. A romance novel." They were schmaltzy, with happy-ever-after bullshit endings, but she adored them anyway.

" _I rewrite them in my head, Puddin'," she'd confessed when Mr. J said all that vanilla romance claptrap was gonna ruin their sex life. "If the couple has kids, they're little evil masterminds."_

Harley swayed side to side, arms cradling her midsection. Batsy had ended more than their night out when Mr. J drove his purple Lamborghini into Gotham River. The stupid bat would pay for taking away her dreams. Bullet, grenade, or a good night blow from her Louisville Slugger, he'd pay, and she'd give him no forewarning.

She was sitting cross-legged on her cot, sipping espresso and reading a romance novel when her company arrived. Puddin', dressed up in riot gear with his name on it all official-like—they were so keeping it for role-playing—told her the words that melted her faster than a drop into a vat of acid. "Let's go home."

Home was where the henchmen were, Mr. J's base of operations in Gotham. Dressed in the sequined, gold and black harlequin-patterned dress he'd brought with him to Belle Rive, she followed her Puddin' into his "Fortress of Solitude." Harley didn't smile, although the phrase sounded funny, like somethin' Superman would've said. She was too overwhelmed by the candlelit room, the rows of knives and guns, the bearskin rug and grape soda on ice in the middle. The baby clothes. Everything brought tears to her eyes. "It's beautiful."

"I created a keyhole pattern," he said. "And you're the key."

Gawd, that didn't make a lick of sense, but it was the most romantic thing he'd ever said to her. Harley fluttered her eyelashes to keep from crying. Puddin' hated tears. "You're my key," she said. "Always." He'd freed her in every way, always had, always would.

He leaned in close and nipped at her earlobe. "Are you sweet talking me?"

She licked her lips. "What if I am?"

His blue eyes blazed into hers. "All this lovey-dovey chit-chat's gonna get ya—" He reached behind him to draw from the waistband of his tuxedo trousers. "Your gun back."

Harley covered her mouth with shaky fingers, tears streaming down her face with more joy than a beauty pageant winner.

"Cut the waterworks," he said. He pulled her hands away from her face and caressed her cheek with the muzzle of the gun before drawing it slowly across her lips. "I'm gonna think I'm not showing you a good time." He raised a hand and snapped his fingers.

Two henchmen pushed a bound and gagged Griggs into the room. He was still in uniform.

"You wore it better," Harley told Mr. J.

He preened for an instant, and then he frowned. "No more sweet talk," he said. "We're taking up where we left off the night we were so _rudely_ interrupted." He cut his eyes to Griggs before telling her, "I promised I'd play Kill, Bang, Marry with you, and I am a man of my word."

Harley took the gun he offered and clutched it to her chest. "Oh, Puddin'," she whispered, so choked up she stammered, "This . . . this is the . . . ."

" _What?_ " he snapped.

She stared at him with her heart in her eyes. "Best. Date Night. Ever."

.

* * *

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A/N: In the comics, Harley Quinn and "Mistah J" (as she pronounces it) have a relationship that can come across as abusive and dysfunctional (in one storyline, she helps him knock off his former henchmen until she discovers he plans to kill her as the punchline to his private joke and shoots him. In another, Harley goes away for a year to have a daughter in secret for her sister to raise and says after she returns that it was like Joker hadn't even noticed she was gone), so I was happily surprised by Joker's portrayal as a crazy, yet devoted criminal mastermind boyfriend in the Suicide Squad film. It inspired me to write this story, and everyone who recognizes quotes from the films worked in, good on ya! It's a bit different from my Star Trek or Harry Potter fics, but, hey, the voices told me to do it. Ahaha, no they didn't, they said to ask readers who enjoyed the story to review and let them—I mean me—know. : D


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